Social media and the college search

When I started college, we didn’t have social media.

I chose Nazareth College from glossy brochures and campus visits. The campus was actually as beautiful as the brochures made it look. Having attended private schools all my life, there was something comforting about a liberal arts private college with small class sizes and roots in all female religious education. (For the record- Nazareth went co-ed and secular decades ago.)

Somewhere in my junior year, I started to hear about social networking. My classmates were signing up for facebook, and I decided to get an account as well. It seemed like a fun way to talk to friends, email them quickly, and share photos from the winter formal. What started as a college trend quickly became a worldwide obsession. When my mom got an account, all I could think was “Facebook is for people my age- not parents!” I was reluctant to see all ages signing up, and I was even more livid when businesses started to creep up in my newsfeed and advertising ran down the sidebar. Despite my feelings, I found myself clicking on those advertisements and liking that I was sent reminders of family birthdays.

Now, social media has saturated our nation and seemingly everyone is connected. I find it bizarre when someone tells me they “don’t do facebook.”

Social media has grown as a powerful marketing tool for business and education. CNN reports that students cruise social media to find out firsthand about their top choice schools. They are connecting with enrolled students and reading blogs and tweets from people at the school. In turn, college admissions are reaching out to students, such as The University of Kentucky sending out tweets to accepted students.

How do you plan to use social media in your college search? Comment or email me: editor@nextstepu.com

Don’t know where to start in your college search? Visit our college match tool to check out schools across the nation by region and/or interest!